Exogenous Product Differentiation and the Stability of Collusion

Lambertini, Luca Working Paper Exogenous Product Differentiation and the Stability of Collusion Quaderni - Working Paper DSE, No. 219 Provided in Cooperation with: University of Bologna, Department of Economics Suggested Citation: Lambertini, Luca (1995) : Exogenous Product Differentiation and the Stability of Collusion, Quaderni - Working Paper DSE, No. 219, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE), Bologna, https://doi.org/10.6092/unibo/amsacta/5106 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/159062 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your personal and scholarly purposes. You are not to copy documents for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ EXOGENOUS PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION AND THE STABILITY OF COLLUSION Luca Lambertini* Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche# Strada Maggiore 45 40125 Bologna tel 39-51-6402600 fax 39-51-6402664 e-mail [email protected] and Linacre College Oxford OX1 3JA e-mail [email protected] JEL classification number: L 13 Keywords: cartel stability, product differentiation Abstract The stability of collusion in quantities in a differentiated duopoly is analised, and the result is compared to that emerging in the case of price-setting behaviour. It turns out that quantity collusion is generally better sustained than price collusion, unless products are almost perfect substitutes. Under both quantity and price competition, the social damage associated with collusion is increasing in the degree of substitutability. *Acknowledgements I am grateful to Gianpaolo Rossini for helpful comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimer applies. #Please send correspondence to the Italian address. 1. Introduction The issue of cartel stability has received wide attention in the recent oligopoly theory. In this short note, I want to focus on the influence exerted by product differentiation on firms’ ability to collude. Within the address approach, this question has been tackled in several papers (Chang, 1991; Jehiel, 1992; Ross,1992 and Häckner, 1994). Within the non-address approach, the main contributions are those of Deneckere (1983), Majerus (1988), Ross (1992) and finally Rothschild (1992). Ross confines his attention to the interplay between product differentiation and price collusion, showing that the critical discount rate is initially decreasing and then increasing in the degree of substitutability between products. Deneckere, as well as Rothschild, compares cartel stability under price and quantity competition, though resorting to different models. The first author claims that collusion is better sustained in price setting games when substitutability is high, while the reverse holds when substitutability is low; on the contrary, the second author finds that a high degree of substitutability fosters collusion in quantity, and viceversa. Finally, Majerus has shown that the latter result does not hold as the number of firms increases.Inthefollowingpages,Iamgoingtoinvestigatecollusivebehaviourinadifferentiated quantity-setting duopoly adopting the same modelization as in Ross (1992). Onthe basis of my ownand Ross’ resultsit is possibleto claimthat quantity collusion isgenerally morestable than pricecollusion,exceptwhengoodsareveryclosesubstitutes.Thisconclusionisinsharpcontrast with Rothschild (1992) while it is partially in line with Deneckere (1983). 2. The model The model I adopt relies on a quadratic utility function for the representative consumer, as in Dixit (1979), Singh and Vives (1984) and Ross (1992). Individuals derive utility from the consumption of two substitute goods, x1and x2, and a numeraire y, according to that, given py=1, yields the following inverse demand function for good i: U=ax1+ax2−1 2(bx1 2+2dx1x2+bx2 2)+y(1 1 The ratio measures the degree of exogenous differentiation between the two goods. If r=0 they are completely independent, while if r=1 they are perfect substitutes. Both firms produce at the same constant marginal cost c. Thus, the profit function of firm iis the following: from which firm i’s reaction function in the quantity space can be derived: Solving(4),weobtain and astheoptimal quantity and equilibrium profit for firm iin the simultaneous noncooperative duopoly game. Let us now focus on cartel behaviour. The objective of the cartel is to maximize joint profits The generic first order condition is: fromwhich wecan easily obtainfirm i’soptimalcollusive output andthen equilibrium profits We are finally able to investigate firm i’s cheating behaviour, provided firm jsticks to the collusive agreement. By substituting into (4) and solving for xi, we get as firm i’s deviation output, while deviation profits are pi=a−bxi−dxj,i,j=1,2,i≠j.(2 r=d/b∈[0,1] πi=(pi−c)xi,(3 ∂πi ∂xi=a−c−2bxi−dxj=0. (4 xiN=(a−c)/(2b+d)π i N=b(a−c)2/(2b+d)2 ΠC=π i C+πj C. ∂ΠC ∂xi=a−c−2bxi−2dxj=0,(5 xiC=(a−c)/2(b+d) πi C=(a−c)2/4(b+d). xjC=(a−c)/2(b+d) xiD=(a−c)(2b+d)/4b(b+d) 2 Bynowwearewellacquaintedwiththenotionofcollusionstabilityinaninfinitelyrepeated game, so that I can confine myself to recall that the critical discount rate provides a direct measure of cartel stability. Provided that the model is symmetric, index ican be dropped. Onthe basis of the above calculations, the critical discount rate in the Cournot case is the following: which is equal to 1 when goods are completely independent (r=0), while it is equal to 8/9 when there is perfect substitutability (r=1). Furthermore, it is easilychecked that in the relevant range of parameters both the first and the second derivatives of respect to rare non-positive, so that the critical discount factor is decreasing and concave in the degree of substitutability. The critical discount rate under Bertrand competition (Ross, 1992, pp.7-8) is defined as follows: The discontinuity in is due to the fact that for r>0.73 the model ovestates the gain from cheating and violates the constraint that all quantities must be positive. When this constraint is duly accounted for, the second expression in (8) obtains. Thus, under Bertrand behaviour cartel stability initially decreases and then increases as product differentiation shrinks. A comparison between (7) and (8) shows that quantity collusion is generally more stable than price collusion. πi D=[(a−c)(2b+d)]2/16b(b+d)2. ρ*=πC−π N πD−π C(6 ρC *=4(r+1) 4(r+1)+r2,(7 ρC * ρB *=4(1+r) (2−r)2∀r∈[0,0.73[;ρB *=r4 (2−r)2(r2+r−1)∀r∈[0.73,1]. (8 ρB * 3 Since when r=0.96155, the reverse is true only for i.e., when products are very close substitutes. As far as social welfare is concerned, Ross (1992, p.8-9) shows that under Bertrand competitiontheratioSWC/SWNdecreasesasr,i.e.,thedegreeofsubstitutability,increases.Thus, the larger is product differentiation the less harmful collusion will be.It can be quickly checked that the same holds in the Cournot setting as well. Social welfare is defined as the sum of consumer surplus and industry profits: which in the two cases under consideration yields: It is straightforward to verify that both SWNand SWCare decreasing and convex in r. Since the same also holds for the ratio SWC/SWN, the above claim is thus proved. 3. Conclusions Ihaveinvestigatedtheissueofcartelstabilityinaquantity-settingduopolywhereproducts arecharacterizedbyanexogenousdegreeofsubstitutability.Thecomparisonbetweenmyresults and those derived by Ross (1992) for a price-setting duopoly shows that collusion in quantities ismoreeasilysustainedthancollusioninpricesforawiderangeofparameters,whiletheopposite holds only when the degree of substitutability between products is almost complete. This conclusion differs completely with that reached by Rothschild (1992) while it confirms to a certain extent that of Deneckere (1983). Finally, the level of social welfare associated with the cartel increases as product differentiation increases, independently of whether firms set prices or quantities. ρC *=ρ B *r∈]0.96155,1], SWJ=∑ iπi J+CSJ,i=1,2; J=N,C,(9 SWN=(a−c)2(3+r) (2+r)2;SWC=3(a−c)2 4(1+r).(10 4 References Chang M. (1991), The Effects of Product Differentiation on Collusive Pricing, International Journal of Industrial Organization, 9, pp.453-69. Deneckere, R. (1983), Duopoly Supergames with Product Differentiation, Economics Letters, 11, pp.37-42. Häckner J. (1994), Collusive Pricing in Markets for Vertically Differentiated Products, International Journal of Industrial Organization, 12, pp.155-77. Jehiel,P.(1992),ProductDifferentiationandPriceCollusion,InternationalJournalofIndustrial Organization, 10, pp.633-41. Majerus, D.W. (1988), Price vs Quantity Competition in Oligopoly Supergames, Economics Letters, 27, pp.293-7. Ross, T.W. (1992), Cartel Stability and Product Differentiation, International Journal of Industrial Organization, 10, pp.1-13. Rothschild,R.(1992),OntheSustainabilityofCollusioninDifferentiatedDuopolies,Economics Letters, 40, pp.33-7. 5